Inferno Xix: Whack-A-Pope

The amount text of the canto inwards Italian/English

Il mio bel San Giovanni . My dear, beautiful San Giovanni. Of all the buildings that last from the fourth dimension of Dante’s Florence, this is both the most famous in addition to the ane he cherished the most. While the structure of the next Santa Maria del Fiore began 5 years before Dante was exiled from Florence, it wasn’t completed until the fifteenth century. Its electrical flow baptistry, however, amongst which the Duomo forms present a sublimely harmonious pair, was erected much earlier, betwixt 1059 in addition to 1128. I saw it this twelvemonth amongst my youngest son, on the showtime warm twenty-four hr menstruation of the Italian spring. But nosotros didn’t larn within – the queue was prohibitively long.

There it is, the quondam San Giovanni, identical that what it would shout for hold looked similar inwards Dante’s times, except for its 3 doors – including the ane dubbed past times Michelangelo The Door of Paradise – which shout for hold since replaced the medieval originals. Dante was baptised hither and, afterward becoming a magistrate of the city, in ane trial ordered that ane of its marble baptismal wells live broken because somebody had got stuck inwards it in addition to was at adventure of drowning.

We know almost this episode because Dante talks almost it inwards the nineteenth canto of the Inferno. H5N1 piddling housekeeping, every bit per usual: it’s the morn of nine Apr 1300, the twenty-four hr menstruation before Easter on the twelvemonth of the showtime Catholic Jubilee. It is the bit twenty-four hr menstruation of Dante’s journey. He in addition to his guide Virgil are approaching the 3rd ditch of Malebolge, the 8th circle of Hell. The canto begins amongst an invocation:

O Simon mago, o miseri seguaci
che le cose di Dio, che di bontate
deon essere spose, e voi rapaci
per oro e per argento avolterate…

Roughly: ‘O Simon Magus, o pitiable followers, you lot who the things of God, which ought to live the brides of holiness, merchandise rapaciously inwards telephone commutation for gilt in addition to for silver…’

The things of god are spiritual gifts, such every bit the ability to administer the baptism which the biblical Simon Magus, every bit reported inwards the Acts of the Apostles, tried to purchase for coin from Saint Peter. Hence the sin of simony, which was rife inwards this century leading upward to the reformation.

Glancing at the 3rd ditch in addition to its inhabitants, Dante notes that the basis is riddled amongst circular holes roughly of the size of the baptismal wells inwards the bel San Giovanni (there it is), in addition to that the damned are planted inwards these holes upside down, thus that entirely the legs are sticking in addition to all they tin create is kicking amongst varying degrees of frenzy. Oh, in addition to their feet are on fire. Because Qual suole il fiammeggiar de le cose unte / muoversi pur su per la strema buccia, / tal era lì dai calcagni a le punte. Like the ship away burning on a greasy object moves entirely across the surface, thus also the ship away that burns the souls is entirely visible at their extremities.

William Blake depicted the wells similar roomy baptismal fonts.

It’s a overnice illustration, but inwards the scene that Dante describes the souls are much to a greater extent than tightly stuck. The anonymous engraver of the 14th century Codex Altoniensis seems closer to the mark.

Now, consider the next question: you lot are Dante in addition to you lot desperately desire to seat inwards Hell your most bitter of enemies, Pope Boniface VIII, except at the fourth dimension inwards which you lot laid your poesy form he’s non dead yet. What would you lot do? Dante’s solution is of the utmost narrative elegance: he has ane the stuck-upside-down souls fault him from Boniface. Remember, the souls of the damned don’t know what is happening on basis inwards the acquaint but shout for hold merely about cognition of the future, thus this fault has the value of a prophecy. Boniface volition cease upward inwards Hell, in addition to thus volition his successor, Clement V, who succeeded Boniface inwards 1305 in addition to died inwards 1314, non before having shifted the papacy to Avignon.

As for the soul addressed past times Dante inwards the acquaint tense of the poem, it’s yet merely about other pope: the less famous but nonetheless thoroughly rotten Nicholas III, who occupied the Holy See betwixt 1277 in addition to 1280 and, past times all accounts, traded for the create goodness of his wider identify unit of measurement all the roles in addition to offices that weren’t nailed downward (as it were). He is stuck here, waiting for Boniface to arrive, at which shout for he volition live pushed deeper into the hole – which already contains other, unnamed popes – in addition to thus Boniface himself volition live corked inwards farther when it’s Clement’s plough to live the kicking one: similar inwards a deadening but endless game of whack-a-pope.

The residue of the canto takes the shape of a furious reprimand aimed past times Dante to the captive pontiff, but targeting to a greater extent than broadly the corruption of the Catholic Church from the master sin of the donation of Constantine onwards: an arc of depravity that fails to curvature towards redemption or justice. It’s an incendiary political spoken communication that Dante wrote in addition to published inwards exile, piece harboured past times a unusual court, knowing that inwards all likelihood he would never larn to come across his bel San Giovanni again.

Previously: Inferno I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII.